Time Out

The holidays are always a great time to visit family and friends. We traveled to Kansas last week to visit my family. It had been a while since I had seen two of my brothers. It didn't take long before we were joking around and carrying on - just like old times.

But after I gave my younger brother a hard time about something, he jokingly responded with what he thought was a harmless, "shut up." What my brother had forgotten was that his two year old and my two year old were in the same room. I quickly reminded him of the fact and we all agreed that he deserved a "time out." Later that day, however, he slipped again and said the same two words. So, it was back to the corner. He knew his mistake a moment after the words left his mouth.

This experience reminded me about the words in James 3. "If we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could control ourselves in every other way." Our tongue is a powerful thing and when it is left to just our control, trouble always follows. The key is to continually pray for self-control (one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit) and fill your heart with uplifting things so that positive words will flow out of your mouth.

I wish that my brother's mistakes had no ill effects. But not surprisngly, my son repeated that phrase more than once the next day. His time outs were a powerful reminder of the "wild fire" effects that our tongue can have. I know I won't be perfect in this area but it is up to me to keep God in control of my life and practice my own self control as much as possible.

Sit, wait, wonder

It was Thursday at 1am and Candace came running to the bedroom shrieking and pleading for me to help with the dog. Wrigley, our dog, had come to the back door with a opossum in his mouth. Not exactly the cleanest of critters for him to bring to us, but it didn't surprise me as the neighbors had warned us of a sighting a few weeks ago.

On crutches, I was pretty useless in dealing with this problem (removing the opossum and cleaning the dog) so I suggested that Candace give the dog a bath and get me the video camera so I could film the opossum for a few minutes to see if he would rise up from his charade and scamper off the deck. I pulled up a chair and turned on the camera. There I would sit, wait, and wonder. Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting by the back door and losing hope that I would witness the success of one of nature's most interesting defense mechanisms. Finally, I went to bed knowing the fate of the opossum.

Early the next morning, the opossum was still there as my father-in-law stopped by to dispose of our dog's catch in a sealed trash reciptical. The opossum's strategy backfired. Wrigley didn't walk away from him and he wasn't able to come to life and climb the spruce to safety.

As I reflected on my fifteen minutes in front of the back door, I thought of Christ's ressurrection. After countless times of Jesus warning his closest friends and followers of what he had to do, you would have thought that a few of them would still have hope of his return. Instead, his disciples were scared and bewildered following the crucifixion. And even after Christ rose on the third day, it took some convincing on Jesus' part so that the disciples would believe he was really alive.

Isn't it great that we don't have to sit, wait, and wonder? Jesus is alive! And so is our hope - because of Him. Too often I take for granted my hope for the future. I watch the news and read the paper and shake my head. But in the end, I am not worried because my future is secure. I don't have to sit, wait, and wonder if things will get better. All because Jesus did rise again.

RSVP

A few weeks ago, I received an invite to a "getting to know the neighbors" dinner. Our back yard neigbors, Jerry and Mary, were opening their home and wanted to connect 5 of the families during dinner. I made plans to attend with Jackson as Candace had to work. And at 6pm we walked over to their home with our covered dish and rang the doorbell. Mary answered and we greeted her and asked if the dinner was still on. Her reaction was puzzling as she mentioned that she was hoping that I would have called. I apologized and realized I had missed something. Then Mary told me that no one had RSVP'd and they had postponed it. Oops.

Mary asked us in and we went to the back deck and spent time chatting with them. It was nice to get to know them, but as Jackson and I became hungrier by the minute (and the potato salad by itself wasn't the meal I had in mind), we decided to head home and find something to eat.

Looking back, I am reminded of the story Jesus told about the Wedding Banquet. The king sent out invites for his son's wedding but they refused and after further rebellion by his servants, the king said "go to the street corners and invite anyone you can find." The result? The wedding hall was full of people, both good and bad.

I wondered today, what's that mean for me? What does this story mean for our church? Well, the one thing that sticks out from Matthew 22 is the word "anyone." In our efforts to invite people to church, and most importantly, to Jesus we can't forget that word. I hope that in my life I am always looking for anyone to share my story with. I often pray for God to show me someone that I need to talk with, but maybe I should just start with anyone.